First, one player against one player-- one plane against one plane-- is not a very interesting scenario.

If you have played the WWI version, you can compare the turning radius' of the WWII planes to something like the SPAD 13. With a one plane to one plane game, there ends up being a lot of chasing around or a lot of Immelmans and head-on shots.

For 2 people, I would recommend that each one control 2 airplanes. That slows things down a little bit (keeping them separate), and I would REALLY recommend that they control 2 "different" planes, since keeping 2 of the same kind distinct in your head (and keeping the maneuver decks from mingling) may drive you crazy.

At 4 players, each flying one plane, it moves nicely, and with 6 players, each flying one- it also moves right along. Altho the mix can be rather tenuous to fly 3 axis planes.

I would strongly recommend you buy the booster pack "eagles of the Reich" as soon as possible.

Being able to fly more than one Me 109 is a vital thing for multiplayer games. Being able to mix in the 109s with weak guns can be a good play balance device to handle odd numbers of players too.

"Legends" is nice to have, but you can get by alright as an allied player with one spitfire and 2 hurricanes-- altho if you want to fly the Japanese planes, you run into a conflict with the Hurricane decks.

Oh, I would agree that, if you're playing with the optional rules, you don't want more than one plane.

Sorry-- I forgot that, because we very quickly decided that the optional rules were just way more involved than we cared to deal with. Pick cards, move planes, shoot each other. That's good enough for us!